In The Shadow of Fame A Memoir by the Daughter of Erik H. Erikson Hardback - 2005

by Sue Erikson Bloland

As the daughter of Erik H. Erikson, Sue Erikson Bloland had to learn from an early age to reconcile the public view of her father as a pioneering intellectual with the complex and rather insecure man whom she knew. How could Erikson, who first gained renown based on his groundbreaking work in child psychology, feel so inadequate in his private role as a father?

Bloland recounts her father's rise to celebrity and the eagerness with which her parents embraced fame in the hope that it would heal their childhood wounds. Feeling left out of their 'fairy tale' existence and hopelessly unworthy as the daughter of such charismatic figures, she struggled for many years to find direction in her own life. She watched her father relate comfortably to strangers in ways that he was unable to with his own family. And like the children of many celebrities, she felt compelled to support her father's idealized image to help protect him from public exposure of his personal vulnerabilities.

In her beautifully written and moving memoir, Bloland describes her family through her own eyes, a portrait enriched by her own psychoanalytic training. Fame, she argues, is not the emotional panacea that we all imagine it to be. Ultimately, we can find fulfillment and validation only through more genuine sources of self-acceptance.